Cool Shit 4/11

A couple new looks at the new Arrested Development promotions.

Books you might not know that have sequels.

New Zealand is cool. Time lapse videos are cool. When you put them together, you have double cool.



A look at Star Wars action figures as though they were from a Russ Meyer film. Commissioned by Patton Oswalt! (Really, I have no idea what's going on)

There were some weird television series spin-offs through the years.

What's that, you say? You wish you could take existing Google Street View photography and create your own time lapse movies? Well, ok.

Here's an example of what the hell I'm talking about:



Ok. Where to begin with this one...it's a documentary called Sirius - which is not about the satellite radio company but: well, I'll just offer you the first line of the movie to help explain it:

"The existence of UFOs has been known for millennia..."

And from there, it only gets crazier. Seriously - each frame of this trailer is crazier than the previous one.



April 22 can't get here fast enough.

The Best of Sirius (2/2)

This is the first in a new series of posts whose length will will hopefully be longer than one and will go up a couple of times per week.

I have an approximately 40 minute commute, but I also have the soothing tones of Sirius to keep me and my short attention span company.  To satisfy my twin goals of exposing myself to more music and post more often & more succinctly, I’m going to explore some of the musical highlights and lowlights in these posts.

 

After the jump, you’ll get some random thoughts and YouTube goodness pertaining to 3 of this morning’s favorite tunes.

Bob Seger “Shakedown”

I remember loving this song way back when it helped Beverly Hills Cop II make enough money to ensure Beverly Hills Cop III was a fait accompli.

It still holds up pretty well as a goofy 80s up-tempo song.

Wanna watch the original, slightly NSFW (a few strip club thong shots) video for this song with plenty of well-edited BHCII clips?  Here you go.   Favorite shots are the fake punch to the German guy’s chin and when he swings outside the truck holding on to the chains.

Wanna watch the same song with a bunch of actions shots from General Hospital?  Here you go.

Wanna watch a portly Seger in leather vest and headband?  Here you go.  I love the sax player in the trench coat, who apparently goes by the moniker “Alto Reed”.

 

Bruce Springsteen “Atlantic City”

This one would normally represent a bunch of spooky coincidences (the Super Bowl half-time show, me nailing 3/4ths of his set, and a loyal TPT reader sending out the clip of The Hold Steady covering AC this morning).  But Sirius has an all-Bruce channel and this song plays every couple of hours.

Still, it’s one of my favorite Bruce tunes.  It’s dark.  It starts off with the cheerful description of a mobster getting blowed up.  Blowed up real good.  And even the hopeful lines have been marinating in some bitter juices:

“Everything dies, baby that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back…”

“Love may have died, love may be cold, but with you forever I’ll stay…”

The Hold Steady’s version:

 

R.E.M. “Begin the Begin”

“Lifes Rich Pageant” is by far my favorite REM album.  The version in my head is still the one on a tape made by a fellow cook at the restaurant I worked at during high school.  The songs were out of order and I still hear the skips in “I Believe”.

Here’s Stipe & Vedder having a competition to see who can spasm the most unrhythmically:

My Jam of the Indeterminate Time Period: Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You"

I'll try and do this every week (nothing resembling a guarantee about that). I'll briefly highlight a new (or maybe not-so-new) song that is currently infesting my brain. More often than not, it'll be something that caught my ear via Sirius. I want feedback, but I'll probably ignore it if it's not positive. Feel free to turn me on (dead man) to some other good Jams of Your Indeterminate Time Period.

My first entry is the Black Kids awesomely titled "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You".



I'm not going to sit here cross-legged and tell you that this is the most original, genre-shattering, era-defining masterpiece. It's not. It's basically Robert Smith fronting The Go! Team (the lead singer may even be Smith's illegitimate mixed-race son). You could do a lot worse Frankensteining bands together, though. It has a great flow and is catchy as hell (likely to be a recurring theme).

The lyrics depict a story as old as time. Guy loves girl. Girl has jerk boyfriend. Guy employs sympathetic female backup singers to count to 4 in between his complaints. Guy won't teach jerk boyfriend to dance because "He's got two left feet and he bites my moves." Guy gets girl, but wonders how he compares to the jerk boyfriend. Just like in West Side Story.

I do deduct points for yet another "Black Plural Objects"/"Descriptive Phrase Kids" approach to band-naming. With a modicum of searching my brain and the Internets, here are a *lot* of other new-ish bands that follow this hackneyed pattern:

1. Black Lips
2. Black Keys
3. Black Dice
4. Black Ghosts
5. Black Diamond Heavies
6. Black Hollies
7. Cold War Kids
8. Cool Kids
9. No Kids

This needs to stop. Now.

I'm willing to be the bigger man, and sublimate my loathing for their unorigiinal name in exchange for singing along to the chorus. Also, I think liking a band named "Black Kids" makes you less racist.

N-Joi yourself.

While you're listening, check out this article from The Morning News where the author listened to 1 song by 763 SXSW bands and wrote a 6-word review for each.

The official video (eh):


A live version:


Cline